Why you shouldn’t bother earning Avios with e-Rewards!

7 November 2012 By Rob

Links on Head for Points pay us an affiliate commission.
A list of our partners is here.

If you are a member of British Airways Executive Club, avios.com, Virgin Flying Club or a few other programmes, you may find yourself receiving an e-mailed invitation to earn miles by joining e-Rewards.

I have been there and done that. And I can tell you, with all honestly, that you should delete the email and forget about it!

On the face of it, it seems a decent deal. You give e-Rewards some information – actually, a LOT of information – about yourself. They then email you with occasional market research surveys.

For each survey you complete, you earn points. When you reach certain point levels, you can redeem your points for miles. What could be wrong with that?

Well, as any seasoned e-Rewards member (or ex-member) can tell you, quite a lot can be wrong!

Just because you are sent a survey, it does not mean you are ‘qualified’ to complete it. Often you are thrown out after the first couple of questions, with no points earned.

Sometimes, you can go a L-O-N-G way into a survey before you are thrown out. You can waste over 15 minutes at times before they decide you are not the sort of person they want. In these circumstances, you receive a nominal drip of points which is a tiny fraction of what you would have got had you completed the last couple of questions.

It will, without a doubt, take you longer than you think to reach the level where you can cash out.

The problem, of course, is that once you’ve done a couple of surveys you feel obliged to push on with them until you can empty your account! I would love to know what percentage of members cancel their membership after making their first redemption!!

The only possible reason to join is if they offer a good sign-up bonus. This may be, for example, 500 Avios after you complete your first survey.

In such case, join for only as long as it takes to complete that first survey. Then cancel! Do not, in any circumstances, be persuaded to carry on – I am sure you will regret it in the end. I did!

(Thanks to Trevor who reminded me of the pain of e-Rewards. He calculated that it took him around 6 hours of completing surveys to earn enough points to redeem for 1,000 Avios!)

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to see our latest articles on earning and spending your points and click here to see our list of current Avios promotions.)

We help business and leisure travellers maximise their Avios, frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty points. Visit every day for three new articles or sign up for our FREE emails via this page or the box to your right.

A controversial post indeed! I can see why people (like I used to) want to earn extra points off e-Rewards, but just how do you value your time?

It is worth constantly trying to take part in surveys that you fail to qualify for? When you (eventually, over a few months) have enough points to exchange, how badly did you need those 1000 Avios after spending hours trying to earn them? At 6hrs (do a real evaluation of your time and you’ll see this is true) to earn 1000 Avios (±£10), you’re earning a measly £1.66/hr and it’s taken you weeks or months to scrape all this together. You’d probably do better keeping an eye on the floor for dropped change near supermarket checkouts, or checking payphone and vending machines for change like a hobo! Considering you can earn 500 or a 1000 points for quick hotel online offers, or 2000 Avios just for being new to changing your ClubCard points, or earn 20,000 Avios simply by taking 5min to apply for a new credit card, is hours on e-Rewards really that valuable to you?

I also thought it was a great way to earn extra points – while I was still a naive points collector. Now that I read this blog (and others) and know how to do it for real, e-rewards just doesn’t compare.

Yup, you can do it watching TV, but why not just relax and watch TV? Yup, you can crack the knack and have multiple accounts to complete more surveys, but if you’re going to take the time and make the effort, why not do it for something more appealing and ultimately more rewarding than these boring surveys?

There may be a time and a place for these surveys, but they are few and far between.

And if your life is so dull and you wish to continue, be careful what partners you are earning for and think you are keeping alive. I earned 1000’s of points for Air France’s Flying Blue, only to have them all lost because their T&C’s stipulate that to keep miles from expiring, you actually have to take a flight with them every 2 years!

So be sure that your wasted time on e-Rewards won’t be more wasted – check your partner T&C’s carefully. But rather reconsider if the effort is worth the result when compared to the many other methods of earning points.

Why be kind to the dreadful Flying Blue programme? The terminal Flying Poo requires a QUALIFYING flight at least once every 20 MONTHS! And a qualifying flight doesn’t include most partners.

No such quibbles with e-rewards. Somehow we’ve ended up being US and UK members. Because of browser checks, the US offers only work when we’re in the US and the UK offers only in the UK. Nevertheless, we’ve topped up some otherwise expiring FF and FG accounts this way.

I have a 3 month old baby. I find that those surveys that actually work on an iPad are a great way of spending time during the 3am feed etc. Of course, only about 50% work on an iPad/iPhone. I admit that my son does tend to distract me from my Avios earning opportunities….long may that continue.

I have 6 accounts and mainly do the 8000 for 3000 IB Avios . I have also used them to trade on FTs Coupon Connection. Dont forget that you can redeem these points to anyones Avios/ Virgin/Hotel partners account by changing your erewards name transfering then changing back. Great for topping up. Did anyone get the 10,000 for 10 mins (4mins infact) last week I thought it was a typo until the said 10.000 posted

Some adblockers stop articles on Head for Points from displaying properly. If some words or pictures appear to be missing when you read, you will need to whitelist the site to fix the problem. Thank you.

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies to improve your experience. This includes using an affiliate tracking cookie if you click an external link. You can block cookies via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. AcceptRejectRead More